Bay Area woman who bought ‘Marry Me’ billboards gets date

Love may be free — but not for a woman who plastered “Marry Me” billboards across busy roads for a Valentine’s Day date.

“People will be shocked by how much I’ve spent,” Lisa Catalano told The California Post. “I will definitely release the financial breakdown when I’m all done and am engaged.”

The splashy campaign Catalano launched in fall 2025 generated more than 4,000 applications through her website.

She then went through each application, narrowing the pool down to about 50 men, then to 20 before finally landing five first dates back in the fall.

Catalano’s Valentine’s Day outing — not with a candidate from the initial batch of applications — wasn’t a first meeting, but with someone she’d been seeing for about a month.

The pair went to see a romantic comedy before heading home to cook dinner together, opting to keep things “simple and relaxed” rather than brave crowded restaurants.

While she has not decided on exclusivity, Catalano said she is enjoying the dating process and meeting new people.

“It was simultaneously the most stressful time of my life but also the most magical thing that’s ever happened to me,” Catalano said when asked if the search was worth it. “The entire time I’ve been optimistic that this will all work out.”

Any man she goes out with is required to sign an NDA to protect both herself and the men, preventing anyone from leaking details or having ulterior motives.

“I just really wanted to provide protection for myself and protection for them as well,” she said.

Catalano said the bulk of the expense has gone toward billboard advertising, with placements running along Highway 101 between Santa Clara and South San Francisco.

“Since I don’t have billboards in SF itself, I opted to do the taxi toppers there,” she said.

In San Francisco, she supplemented the freeway ads with digital taxi toppers, which at their peak ran on around 20 cabs.

She stopped running those as of Jan. 1, she said. The taxi ads played for roughly 30 seconds at a time, though she added with a laugh that she wasn’t entirely sure of the exact timing.

Her initial campaign included 12 billboard locations, which she later scaled back around October to six to eight at a time.

For Valentine’s Day alone, she ran 14 special “Happy Valentine’s Day from MaryLisa.com” billboards for two days along Highway 101. The billboards appear in rotation, playing for about eight seconds at a time, she said.

Beyond advertising, Catalano also paid for her website domain and hosting — building the site herself — along with promotional materials such as business cards, flyers and custom buttons.

She purchased a printer and covered the cost of paper, ink and organizational supplies after printing and manually reviewing thousands of applications on her own.

“I did it all manually, by myself, no help,” she said.

In the Bay Area, where the cost of living and advertising prices are sky-high, the endeavor has cost thousands of dollars.

Beyond the staggering financial commitment, Catalano — a tech veteran who now freelances while running a vintage clothing resale business — says the emotional toll has been just as heavy. Since launching the campaign, she has been branded as “desperate” by online critics.

“A lot of people call me desperate, and for me, I don’t think I’m desperate,” Catalano said. “I think I just know what I want and what I’m looking for.”

She said the campaign started out of frustration with dating apps that weren’t producing meaningful conversations or dates.

“I started it as a joke out of frustration, and it just kind of snowballed from there,” she said.

The vitriol is often personal and aggressive.

“You are going to die alone and you deserve it,” one applicant wrote. The same individual attacked her age and choices, adding, “Shouldn’t have fumbled the bag when you were 20, you stupid c***.”

When the application asked if there was anything else he’d like Lisa to know, he simply added: “Lol, f*** you.”

In responding to accusations of not dating early in life, the bachelor said she was was in a committed relationship in her 20s.

“He was terminally ill for several years and died. I had to start over with dating at that point,” she added.

Despite the hate and trolling, Catalano says the wave of support she receives has been helpful.

One supporter reached out to commend her “immense courage,” noting that he and his wife are “rooting for her” to find a partner who shares her adventurous spirit.

He shared that he uses Lisa’s story as a lesson for his own daughter, telling her to “never settle for less than you deserve” and praising Lisa for being unapologetic about her non-negotiables and preferences.

Catalano says she reviews all applications, automatically disqualifying anyone international due to proximity, or anyone outside her age range.

“The majority of the applications were easy to weed out,” she said. “A lot of people filled it out as a joke, or they didn’t meet basic compatibility requirements, or said they didn’t want to get married, which are deal breakers for me.”

If you are a bachelor between the ages of 35 and 47, the application is still open.

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